LSAT 138 – Section 4 – Question 12

LSAT 138 - Section 4 - Question 12

December 2012

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Question
QuickView		 Type Tags Answer
Choices		 Curve Question
Difficulty		 Psg/Game/S
Difficulty		 Explanation
PT138 S4 Q12
+LR
+Exp
Flaw or descriptive weakening +Flaw
Conditional Reasoning +CondR
Quantifier +Quant
A
82%
164
B
1%
154
C
7%
158
D
9%
161
E
1%
153
126
141
156
 +Easier 146.393 +SubsectionMedium

The government has recently adopted a policy of publishing airline statistics, including statistics about each airline’s number of near collisions and its fines for safety violations. However, such disclosure actually undermines the government’s goal of making the public more informed about airline safety, because airlines will be much less likely to give complete reports if such information will be made available to the public.

Summarize Argument: Counter-Position
The author concludes that the government’s proposal to publish reports of airline statistics will actually make the public less informed about airline safety because the reports will likely be incomplete.

Identify and Describe Flaw
This argument is flawed because it fails to consider the fact that reports can still inform the public about airline safety even if they’re incomplete. While it’s fair to assume that an incomplete report would be less informative than a complete one, an incomplete report is still better than nothing. Even if the reports are missing some information, there’s no reason to believe that they’d make the public less informed than if this kind of information weren’t made public at all.

A
fails to consider that, even if the reports are incomplete, they may nevertheless provide the public with important information about airline safety
This describes how the argument fails to consider that a report can still help inform the public even if it’s missing some information.
B
presumes, without providing justification, that the public has a right to all information about matters of public safety
The argument never assumes anything about people’s rights. It only claims that this policy will undermine the goal of informing the public.
C
presumes, without providing justification, that information about airline safety is impossible to find in the absence of government disclosures
The argument doesn’t assume that government disclosures are necessary to finding this information. In fact, the author claims that the government’s actions are counterproductive in this case.
D
presumes, without providing justification, that airlines, rather than the government, should be held responsible for accurate reporting of safety information
The argument makes no claim about who should be responsible for reporting this information. It only claims that this policy is counterproductive to the goal of informing the public.
E
fails to consider whether the publication of airline safety statistics will have an effect on the revenues of airlines
This is irrelevant. The argument is only concerned with whether or not this policy is effective at informing the public. It doesn’t matter what effect it has on airlines’ revenues.

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LSAT PrepTest 138 Explanations

Section 1 - Reading Comprehension

Section 2 - Logical Reasoning

Section 3 - Logical Reasoning

Section 4 - Logical Reasoning

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